Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach

Carl Friedrich Leopold von Gerlach, the younger son of Friedrich Wilhelm, was president of the Electoral Mark War and Domains Chamber and a Privy Councillor of Finance, and during the French occupation also general civil commissioner for the March territories. In 1809, under the Stein municipal reform, he was elected the first elected Lord Mayor of Berlin and remained in office until his death in 1813; his term saw the founding of Berlin University. After the 1780 division of the inheritance he had initially held several Pomeranian estates (Ganzkow, Schötzow, Mechenthin, a share in Rützow), which he sold in 1805 to acquire the Rohrbeck estate in the Neumark instead – the later seat of the Rohrbeck branch named after him. With his wife Agnes von Raumer he had five children, among them the three "Gerlach brothers" Leopold, Ernst Ludwig and Otto. The city of Berlin honoured him with a grave of honour at the Domfriedhof II.

Chronicle

1. 1757

   Born in Berlin. The family history gives 25 August.

2. 1763–1813

   His official papers survive together in the family archive: "Königl. Dienst-Angelegenheiten 1763 bis 1813", a file of some one hundred and forty items. The catalogue names for it the kings Frederick William II and Frederick William III, the state chancellor Hardenberg and the cabinet councillor Karl Friedrich von Beyme, the Kurmark war and domains chamber and the General Directory – and for the last years the Berlin assembly of town deputies and the magistrate, that is, the self-government created by the municipal ordinance of 1808.

3. 1765–1775

   At the age of eight he leaves home to be educated at Halberstadt under Karl August von Struensee, who by his fourteenth year can teach him nothing more; dismissed as "primus omnium", after a year of preparation he studies two years at Göttingen, then at Halle, and returns to Berlin at Easter 1775 (obituary, Berlinische Nachrichten 12 June 1813). As early as 1771, after three and a half years in the top form, the rector declares him ready for university at fourteen; he then studies law at Göttingen and Halle and returns to Berlin at Easter 1775.

4. 1775

   At eighteen a Referendar at the Kammergericht; in 1779 assessor of the Electoral Mark War and Domains Chamber (Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 5 June 1892). The Brandenburg State Main Archives hold files of the "department of War and Domains Councillor v. Gerlach" in the Lebus district – land improvements 1774–1788 and the settlement of cottagers and day labourers 1777–1786 – which probably refer to him as councillor of the Kurmark chamber in the 1780s (Rep. 2 Kurmärkische Kammer D 550, 551 and 2413). As a junior lawyer he tours the Westphalian courts with Grand Chancellor von Fürst and from there visits Amsterdam. His father wanted him for the diplomatic service; he preferred administration.

5. 1780

   Division of the inheritance: receives several Pomeranian estates, including Ganzkow, Schötzow and Mechenthin.

6. 1786

   Marries Agnes von Raumer. The wedding takes place in Dessau in April (Kraus 1994).

7. 1790

   Appointed to the General Directory as a member of the law commission, with the title of Privy Councillor of Finance.

8. 1792

   Buys a house in Berlin (Denkwürdigkeiten, 1891).

9. 1795

   President of the Electoral Mark War and Domain Chamber; also Privy Councillor of Finance.

10. 1797

    An etching by S. Halle appears as a plate in the "Denkwürdigkeiten und Tagesgeschichte der Mark Brandenburg" – the earliest datable likeness. In 1800 Johann Heinrich Schröder paints him; in 1801 the "Neue Berlinische Monatsschrift" uses Bollinger's engraving after it as frontispiece.

11. 1796/97

    In view of his position in Berlin he parts with his Pomeranian inheritance; nine years later the proceeds paid for Rohrbeck (text sheet to plate 321 of the Duncker collection).

12. 1805

    Acquires Gut Rohrbeck in the Neumark for 106,000 Taler – from the proceeds of the Pomeranian estates.

13. 27. Juni 1805

    The contract of sale for Rohrbeck is concluded; the seller is a Captain von der Osten. The family history notes that the estate is "loved almost too much by every member of the family and regarded as a piece of home".

14. 1806

    During the French occupation of Berlin he stands up to Marshal Davout's arbitrariness – which earns him the affection of the citizens, who elect him unanimously in 1809. Because he votes against Hardenberg's laws in the assembly of notables, the State Chancellor prevents his re-election. After Jena and Auerstedt the king had appointed him general civil commissioner of the Electoral Mark.

15. 1807

    Appointed general civil commissioner of the Electoral Mark – "a token of the recognition of his worth" in the time of French occupation (obituary 1813).

16. 1809

    Elected by the city councillors on 25 April, confirmed by the king on 8 May, installed on 6 July: Berlin's first Lord Mayor under the municipal ordinance of 1808. The founding of the university (1810) falls within his term. His market district had previously elected him a city councillor; on leaving state service he receives the Grand Red Eagle Order – the sash and star in the Berlin State Archive portrait.

17. 20. April 1811

    Silver wedding. The members of the Berlin magistrates’ college dedicated to the couple a poem printed on silk paper; the closing verse celebrates "the second covenant day of love". That also fixes the wedding day: 20 April 1786.

18. 1812

    Where the Berlin house stood is recorded by the general street and housing directory of the royal residence of Berlin: he lived at "Hinter der katholischen Kirche 1" – in the Friedrichstadt, immediately beside the Catholic church of St Hedwig, a few steps from Unter den Linden. From there he led the city through the years of occupation; the town hall lay ten minutes away.

19. 1813

    Dies in Berlin; the city grants him a grave of honour at the Domfriedhof II. He dies on 8 June "after a long and hard sickbed, of total exhaustion"; the detailed obituary in the Berlinische Nachrichten (12 June) praises his "true, genuine religiosity" and recalls that his father had steered him, against his inclination, from the Kammergericht into the fiscal administration.

20. 1871–1954

    The house is gone, the ground is not. Number 1 lay on the east side of the lane, facing the church: the 1929 directory lists the church side as number 3 together with Französische Straße 34, where the prince-bishop’s delegature and the provost of St Hedwig had their offices. Opposite, the Prussian land credit bank had Ende and Böckmann raise a sandstone palace with a front of fifty-seven metres between 1871 and 1873; by 1890 three banking houses occupy numbers 1, 2 and 2a. The bombing cleared the block. Since 1954 the administration and store building of the State Opera by Richard Paulick has stood on the bank plot, Hinter der Katholischen Kirche 1–2, and it is a listed monument.

21. 1882

    When the city assembly resolved on a cycle of ten history paintings for the town hall, one was devoted to the introduction of the municipal ordinance: after a solemn service the chief president swears in the lord mayor and the other members of the magistrate. The proposal expressly notes that the painting offers the opportunity to give, among others, "the portrait of Lord Mayor von Gerlach" – beside that of the outgoing city president Büsching and the councillors Laspeyres and David Friedländer.

22. 1939

    Berlin renames Lietzmannstraße in Mitte after him as Gerlachstraße; the street disappears in the 1960s with the rebuilding of the district.

23. Nachlass

    Letters to his sons 1792–1812, service files 1763–1813 and letters to him from Struensee, Raumer and the poet Anna Luise Karsch are held in the Gerlach Archive at Erlangen University.

24. Kinder

    The only daughter, Sophie (1787–1807), in Ernst Ludwig's memory "the centre of the house", marries the later General Carl von Grolman (1777–1843) in 1804 and dies after the birth of her daughter Luise (1806); the sons Wilhelm, Leopold, Ernst Ludwig and Otto have pages of their own (Kraus 1994).

25. Namensform

    In the official lists of the city of Berlin he still stands simply as "Leopold von Gerlach 1809 to 1813", at the head of the succession of lord mayors. That explains a common confusion: the man meant is not his son, the general and adjutant-general Leopold von Gerlach (1790–1861), but the father.

26. Im Urteil der Familie

    A cousin of the sons, the Brandenburg historian Georg Wilhelm von Raumer (1800–1856), later director of the Prussian Privy State Archives, claimed that everything distinctive about the four brothers came from the Raumers. On another occasion he conceded that the father had been "a pure white ray of sunlight" and the sons "the colours broken in the prism". Ernst Ludwig, who noted it down, replied that the brothers owed a great deal to their father. The introduction to the 1891 memoirs tells the same image but credits a different Raumer: "their cousin, the historian von Raumer", that is Friedrich von Raumer (1781 to 1873), is said to have called the father a pure white ray of sunlight and the sons the colours broken in the prism. Which of the two cousins it was cannot be decided; the 1903 records name the archivist, the memoirs the historian. The introduction draws a consequence from it: "That is just why people often confused them later, praising the general for parliamentary speeches his brother Ludwig had made." A friend is said to have remarked that the brothers had not only one and the same language, they also said the same things.

27. Sein Wesen

    While still a minor he was already a royal councillor – so the introduction to the 1891 memoirs begins. It describes a strictly devout, conservative man to whom the enlightened bureaucratism of the then minister Voß was repugnant and who, for all his loyalty to the king, clung warmly to the German Empire. He took his discharge from state service "much against Stein’s wish". He held to the modest traditions of his family, was no friend of luxury or of society, had much to do, and in his leisure hours read the old authors; he loved the study of historical sources, and still more that of Holy Scripture.

Sources and literature